Increased isolationism

[Churchill]

I got my hopes up reading about this content that was not your typical modern MMO raid snooze fest, but it looks like that content is already passe and instead the current content people do is the same typical crap?

This, actually. Not that I play, or care, or whatever, I just can't imagine there is somewhere on the internet where you would consistently see people praising Heavensward except for people desperate to get someone they know to play the game so their raid group might be complete when that guy gets to 60.

Edit: I'm not even trying to be harsh, I remember that after I quit XIV again and was beating shit in Wildstar, people I played Wildstar with had literally started new characters and beat the Heavensward content in a matter of like 3 or 4 weeks and they were kind of depressed because they had no more MMOs to play.

[Niiro]

I figured he just got that perception from reading things here or OF/Reddit about people complaining that the endgame hadn't really evolved at all.

But yea his complaints seemed to be a bit all over the place, not sure what he actually experienced first hand (not that I'm about to convince anyone otherwise either, I'm unsubbed too).

[haroldsaxon]

If you're talking about 3.0 raid content not being a "snooze fest", it was indeed harder than everything we've seen in the game so far. So hard in fact that most players have chosen to stop raiding or give up because people want things hard then complain when they can't coast through it with minimal effort... Though some of us were still glad for the challenge.

Note that hard here denotes DPS checks. Mechanics were not that difficult, but harsh DPS checks paired with mechanics is what most of the playerbase is unable to deal with. Before, DPS could be sub-par as long as you have a couple people who could carry and mechanics were done. Yoshi P even said this himself.

The game is in a slump right now due to some design choices made by the dev team. They decided to pack a ton of stuff into HW and apparently the workload was so much they needed to give the ffxiv team a vacation, which resulted in patch 3.1 releasing almost 5 months after 3.0, whereas their normal schedule is 3.5 months between patches. Normally the patches between raids are catch up so making people wait that much longer for catch up only made the issue worse because they were still stuck on the third fight of the new raid tier even with 3.1 dramatically increasing item level from giving out upgrade items from Void Ark. Basically, for most groups, the catch up didn't mean shit. They still couldn't clear the raids.

So right now the community is very doom and gloom because the raid has either killed their motivation or killed their group. If you don't raid, there's not much to do outside of Frontlines which is slow due to the GC restrictive queue system (their fault for setting it this way) or working on your relic (which is a boring grind that will soon be outdated by 3.2 items anyway).

The good news for many though, is that he's promised to not make content that hard in the future (saying that DPS checks were too severe for the content)... Good for the majority of the playerbase, bad for the few of us who enjoy a challenge and being forced to work together.

While I agree with most of the stuff you said:

1) Yoshi-P stated he gave the team a week off. Still no excuse for the 5 month patch.
2) There really wasn't that much in HW, considering they had been working on it for over a year and it was delayed.

For most groups, catch up still didn't mean shit in previous patches. AS3 was a very well designed fight. People just fail at that not because they can't DPS, its because they can't do mechanics and DPS. The playerbase as a whole has been spoonfed easy encounters for way too long so it isn't a surprise that when AS3 came along people couldn't do it. Just look at how they nerfed Second Coil - the DPS checks there weren't that severe, yet the playerbase could never do the mechanics. I remember when T7 killed as many raid groups as AS3.

[Destinye]

It was actually a "month" break and they assumed HW was so jam packed of content because of the people who play 45 minutes a week took ages to get through it.

Anyway, a big part of why this game is just..shallow is because Yoshi is coddling a group of players that don't even play the game yet rather than players that get bored almost instantly after they do their 3-7 MSQ, waiting on weekly resets and daily roulettes. It wouldn't be terrible if they branched content out in a meaningful way. Yeah you have 3 ways to get your generic stat gear..why not introduce content that gives us more dynamic stats..or hell slap in XI's augmentation systems since it's still one of the few MMOs out that actually has one that isn't purely socket based. Even in later versions it wasn't 100% RNG so they have the ability to add "routes".

But then again, that's too complicated for the new user. XIV's main problem is, you'll have plenty of new people every now and then but the people that actually try to the enjoy the game will be the first to leave once they fall into the login, do daily, go to a different game cycle.

[haroldsaxon]

Yoshida: After Heavensward was released, we gave the team about a week of holiday. I think everyone needed a week off to take a mental break. That said, for some of the core team, including myself, it was business as usual

https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/12...3.1-and-Beyond

Third answer down.

But I do agree that FFXIV seems to focus on getting a new player to play until end game, rather than working at trying to keep their existing playerbase. Since they released numbers on the amount of new accounts they get a day (last year at some point) - when you see the amount of active characters not increasing or even falling, its worrying. Its a shame.

[Raineer]

I don't know how you work around the issue, but I still think most of the problem is the large step-change once you get into raiding. The entire game is designed to be incredibly accessible, and then there's a fat change once one gets to raiding where you have to pay attention and coordinate in order to succeed. I feel the game does a poor job of ramping up to that. People aren't born knowing how to game at a decent level, so teach them.

Titan HM was the first brick wall that a lot of folks hit - and I don't think there was anything like it beforehand. Please note I'm not claiming it was hard for anyone who's MMOd before, but you want to phase in the new blood as well.

Some of the story-line duties could be teaching this if they are really difficult and force you to know mechanics to succeed. They made some progress near the end of the Heavensward storyline with those solo duties, but I feel they could be teaching those skills earlier. In the solo content, you can't be carried.

If the game doesn't do a better job of teaching actual legitimate "gaming skills", then you end up where we are - a highly delineated casual/raider split with almost no crossover.

[haroldsaxon]

I don't know how you work around the issue, but I still think most of the problem is the large step-change once you get into raiding. The entire game is designed to be incredibly accessible, and then there's a fat change once one gets to raiding where you have to pay attention and coordinate in order to succeed. I feel the game does a poor job of ramping up to that. People aren't born knowing how to game at a decent level, so teach them.

Titan HM was the first brick wall that a lot of folks hit - and I don't think there was anything like it beforehand. Please note I'm not claiming it was hard for anyone who's MMOd before, but you want to phase in the new blood as well.

Some of the story-line duties could be teaching this if they are really difficult and force you to know mechanics to succeed. They made some progress near the end of the Heavensward storyline with those solo duties, but I feel they could be teaching those skills earlier. In the solo content, you can't be carried.

If the game doesn't do a better job of teaching actual legitimate "gaming skills", then you end up where we are - a highly delineated casual/raider split with almost no crossover.

Titan HM was actually really good for the game. It was the first instance where I had to think about how to git gud in the fight (back in i55 dungeon gear), and prepared me well for Coil. But now, the HM primals are snoozefests and the extreme primals have taken up that roll with a bit more mechanically. And this is from a first time MMO player. But the resources are out there, its far easier now that everything has been sorted out - its just that most of the time, people are too lazy to read tooltips and prepare for an encounter.

I really think there should be something in the class quests to teach basic competency. But there is still no excuse for the lazyness that a lot of players continue to show - and since Titan HM, there hasn't been anything non Extreme Primal/non raid that hasn't been faceroll. And even then, the playerbase continues to fail at it and complain until it gets nerfed.

There needs to be that middle ground and the excuse of "I don't have much time I play casually" needs to stop being used. Its not that you play casually, its that you play lazily.

[Raineer]

I totally agree that Titan HM was good for the game, it was a genuine challenge for people who'd never seen anything like that. I just think the game could have saved a lot of frustration by ramping up to it - instead of BAM out of nowhere. However, in the early days of it, you could clearly judge a player's ability if they could dodge consistently. Now, everyone is carried through almost everything primal-wise.

I do still see a ton of lazy players. I used to MMO 12 hours a day, but now I'm old and have (more) kids - so I'm casual in overall playtime but still know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm still trying to decide if I think Heavensward is enjoyable without being able to commit to a raid static.

[Kaisha]

Granted a lot of Titan HM's earlier headaches was the 300ms updates on your position (vs. the current 100ms), and people playing on PS3 which always loaded AoEs with custom effects/animations late.

[haroldsaxon]

I totally agree that Titan HM was good for the game, it was a genuine challenge for people who'd never seen anything like that. I just think the game could have saved a lot of frustration by ramping up to it - instead of BAM out of nowhere. However, in the early days of it, you could clearly judge a player's ability if they could dodge consistently. Now, everyone is carried through almost everything primal-wise.

I do still see a ton of lazy players. I used to MMO 12 hours a day, but now I'm old and have (more) kids - so I'm casual in overall playtime but still know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm still trying to decide if I think Heavensward is enjoyable without being able to commit to a raid static.

They should flat out put a i-level sync and level sync on first clears for everything that isn't current content. Final Coil? i130. Second coil? i110. First Coil? i90.

[Lokus]

Titan HM was a stopping point for a lot of people but it's not like it introduced anything new either. It was scripted like most every other fight, it had a dps check that was a bit harder than the previous 2 primals, and the major difference was that now some attacks became pass/fail. The shitty lag just compounded the pass/fail portions.

[Raineer]

Fair point about the lag, Titan HM was just the first example to pop into my head.

Nothing introduced is ever "new", as there's circles on the ground starting with the very first dungeons. I just wish there was more difficult storyline content that people had to ramp up through.

Or, stated another way, I wish there was less way to carry baddies through stuff. I don't know if there are many people willing to be taught - but I wish the game made more effort to teach. I feel like the game would feel more inclusive if there were more people willing and able to do the content, and not just the delineation between elite and casual.

[Kipling]

While I agree with most of the stuff you said:

1) Yoshi-P stated he gave the team a week off. Still no excuse for the 5 month patch.
2) There really wasn't that much in HW, considering they had been working on it for over a year and it was delayed.

For most groups, catch up still didn't mean shit in previous patches. AS3 was a very well designed fight. People just fail at that not because they can't DPS, its because they can't do mechanics and DPS. The playerbase as a whole has been spoonfed easy encounters for way too long so it isn't a surprise that when AS3 came along people couldn't do it. Just look at how they nerfed Second Coil - the DPS checks there weren't that severe, yet the playerbase could never do the mechanics. I remember when T7 killed as many raid groups as AS3.

That's exactly what I am saying. Mechanics with minimal dps = most don't complain. However, mechanics + harsh dps check = what we have now.

I don't know how you work around the issue, but I still think most of the problem is the large step-change once you get into raiding. The entire game is designed to be incredibly accessible, and then there's a fat change once one gets to raiding where you have to pay attention and coordinate in order to succeed. I feel the game does a poor job of ramping up to that. People aren't born knowing how to game at a decent level, so teach them.

Titan HM was the first brick wall that a lot of folks hit - and I don't think there was anything like it beforehand. Please note I'm not claiming it was hard for anyone who's MMOd before, but you want to phase in the new blood as well.

Some of the story-line duties could be teaching this if they are really difficult and force you to know mechanics to succeed. They made some progress near the end of the Heavensward storyline with those solo duties, but I feel they could be teaching those skills earlier. In the solo content, you can't be carried.

If the game doesn't do a better job of teaching actual legitimate "gaming skills", then you end up where we are - a highly delineated casual/raider split with almost no crossover.

There is no way the game could ever teach someone the nuances of high level raiding, especially because most of the efficiency and maximization is community developed/driven. The amount of work they'd need to do to prepare people for this is so huge it only makes sense for them to not do it.

Tutorial: Double Weaving ogcd's.

Except multiply this by 100 for all the nuances players have developed to try and actually clear raid content. While I think the training dummy is a step in the right direction, I honestly don't know what else they can do aside from directly adding a parser in game. Even then, that doesn't teach you how to play.

[Raineer]

Regarding things like oGCDs and buff timing...

I think it'd be fun if there was a challenge each player could do, maybe weekly or whatever - make it reward 5 tomes of whatever level. You took whatever character you have to the training dummy, and you have to do a certain amount of damage over a certain time. However, the "certain damage" can't be outgeared. It's a moving target based upon your stats. And somehow it's made to be more complex than "blow all your buffs and hit the mark".

I grant that doesn't teach high-level raid mechanics but it's a start.

Other stupid ideas
- bonus reward at the end of PF for DPS with the highest engaged time on mobs, or most actions taken
- bonus reward for highest overall damage done, adjusted to iLvl or something
- bonus reward for never being hit by an AoE

These ideas would probably all be gamed in some undesired way, and SE would never do any of them, I just wish there was some way to cross people over. It would be really nice to have a higher population endgame, or at least a higher level of average player skill. It's the rare group that will teach a newbie unless they are a friend.

[Kipling]

I think Land, Sky, Sea is a good start... At least now you can say, "You need to have at least cleared the dummy to join the PF" so it's a basic competence filter.

However, the problem is most people who play the game don't seem to enjoy doing "outside research" on the game to try and optimize their rotations. Even if it is just a youtube video away it's going to be too much work for most of the playerbase. That's why I think forcing people to sit through hours of tutorials would also turn people off. This game is accessible because it doesn't hold you down and go, "Bro, do tutorials for like 6 hours so you can learn all this shit before you go raid." Most would be like fuck this, just let me raid.

That's what this game does. It lets you move freely, but it doesn't teach you much. They want this game to be accessible so people are encouraged to play it. That's why I think you either have one or the other.

[Spider-Dan]

They should flat out put a i-level sync and level sync on first clears for everything that isn't current content. Final Coil? i130. Second coil? i110. First Coil? i90.

Why? What purpose does it serve to make it difficult for people to clear irrelevant 2-year-old content?

The only effect this would have would be making it impossible to get a group of people who know what they're doing to come along (for glamz etc.), as it's not worth teaching a new person these irrelevant fights from scratch if you have to do it under sync.

[haroldsaxon]

That's exactly what I am saying. Mechanics with minimal dps = most don't complain. However, mechanics + harsh dps check = what we have now.

And there is nothing wrong with mechanics + top end DPS check. That is what savage is meant to be. AS3 was really well designed. The issue is that there wasn't a middle ground for other players, and they messed up the design of a mechanic in AS4.

T7's DPS check was fairly minimal - it wasn't exactly tough, but the mechnics were there and people complained until it got nerfed. People complain about both.

[Kipling]

The only fix is to have 3 tiers of content like Yoshida has discussed before: Normal, Hard, Savage. Unfortunately he claimed he "doesn't have the staff" to do so....

So we have to get a compromise. I just hope its at least as hard as SCoB. That tier was good enough without being too hard.

[solracht]

Why? What purpose does it serve to make it difficult for people to clear irrelevant 2-year-old content?

The only effect this would have would be making it impossible to get a group of people who know what they're doing to come along (for glamz etc.), as it's not worth teaching a new person these irrelevant fights from scratch if you have to do it under sync.

Yeah, this. One of the best parts of Heavensward is lowmanning old content at level60, not sure why anyone would think its a good idea to ruin that.

I'd be fine if certain things were only achievable when you're sync'd (Savage titles, Savage mount) but I see no point in arbitrarily syncing all old content.

[Kaiyoko]

Yeah, this. One of the best parts of Heavensward is lowmanning old content at level60, not sure why anyone would think its a good idea to ruin that.

I'd be fine if certain things were only achievable when you're sync'd (Savage titles, Savage mount) but I see no point in arbitrarily syncing all old content.

I don't really have a problem with unsync'd people get titles / mounts.

Specifically, the mount from A4S I'm really hopping they place a 1~5% drop rate on it for people who have cleared it 3.2+. This was something done in WoW's old raids that rewarded players that actually gave a shit about doing content when it was current while still allowing players to go back for a chance at it. While people aren't doing it the "real" way, it keeps people busy and playing the game. Even today people still make Primal Pony unsync'd farms and I imagine people will do the same for A4S when it becomes more accessible.